We have been planning a Mini-ITX concept build here for about 6 months and there was a little internal debate around the components because we wanted this build to pack some power that would rival our Stryker build. The whole idea was that we wanted as smaller footprint as we could get but it had to be able to cope with a high end graphics card, an overclockable Ivy Bridge CPU and at the same time, be quiet and cool - yeah right...

The generous team at Fractal Design provided us with a Node 304 Mini-ITX case for the project - so this is a review sample but from a retail batch. We have used Fractal Design cases before and been impressed with the build quality and acoustics. Our Define R3 and Define R4 builds are good and consistent examples of our prior experience with Fractal Design gear - and the Node 304 continues this trend.

The Node 304 is a small form factor case with a very unassuming front panel. On first inspection, we thought it looked like a HTPC or piece of home theatre equipment - maybe a NAS at a stretch but not really a high end gaming demon. How wrong we were. News just in: It's also now available in WHITE!

The gallery below is the professional photos from Fractal Design

And our umm.. "less professional" shots can be found below (iPhone 4 used to help with scale):

Technical specifications

Mini ITX, DTX motherboard compatibility

2 expansion slots

6 – supports either 3.5" or 2.5" HDD / SSD

ATX PSUs, up to 160mm in length (To fit in combination with a long graphics card, PSUs with modular connectors on the back typically need to be shorter than 160 mm)

Graphics cards, up to 310mm in length, when 2 HDD brackets are removed (Graphics cards longer than 170 mm will conflict with PSUs longer than 160mm)